


night : day

by honey_wheeler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family, First Time, Friendship/Love, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry takes Ron and Hermione to the Dursley's, they take him to the wedding, Ginny is left behind when they go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	night : day

**Author's Note:**

> Set post- _Half Blood Prince_.

It’s a long train ride to King’s Cross, but not long enough by far. Hermione concocts an elaborate excuse to patrol, so Harry and Ginny have the carriage to themselves. Ron grumbles but allows himself to be herded out the door after giving Harry what can only be called a threatening look. Subtle, they’re not.

It’s almost normal, really. He and Ginny sit together, they talk. Her knee rests against his thigh as she holds his hand in her lap, fiddling with his fingers. He wishes he knew how to do this. He wishes she were angry. Angry he understands. He’d rather be on the defensive. Better that than feel like the worst sort of bastard right now, watching her with her head bowed. He tugs his hand from hers and slides it behind her, pulling her against his shoulder. It takes a moment, but the stiffness leaves her body and she sags against him. The feel of her hair on his cheek, the solid weight of her body; he wishes he could trap them in amber and keep them in his pocket. He doesn’t want to be lonely again.

All too soon they’re off the train and surrounded by the milling crowd. She won’t look at him, but hugs him fiercely, almost painfully, before she turns and disappears into the crowd without speaking. She doesn’t look back. He can’t blame her. With a deep breath he hitches his things up under his arms and goes in search of Ron and Hermione. He should be looking for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, but he’s really in no hurry to find them. They’ll find him soon enough.

Stunned is too pale a word to describe the looks on their faces, he decides, when they do find him, only to see Ron and Hermione flanking him, mutinous glares on their faces. And that’s before they’ve even noticed Crookshanks hissing and spitting from Hermione’s arms, and Pig pinballing around his cage, making a racket that would be deafening if he weren’t the size of an apple. Petunia eyes Crookshanks’ ratty coat balefully and her lip curls in disgust. Pig lets out an excited shriek and she looks positively ill. Harry would be enjoying it, really, if he didn’t feel so sick himself at the prospect of being stuck in that house with them.

Vernon makes a show of blustering, of putting his foot down, how he will _not_ have his home turned into a boarding house for freaks, thank you very much. Harry merely pulls out his wand and flexes it, casually informing Vernon that he isn’t going back to school next year which means no restrictions on magic. Vernon’s face turns quite an interesting shade of puce, but he grits his teeth and leads them all to the car. Ron pokes Harry’s back, calls him a rebel under his breath. Even Hermione is amused.

The ride to the house is uncomfortable, both sides resolutely ignoring each other. Harry sighs and presses his forehead against the cool glass of the window. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks.

It is less than a surprise that his mind returns to those days with Ginny over and over as he lies in his bed that night and stares at the ceiling. Ron mutters and thrashes a bit, squirming on the hard floor, but Hermione seems to fare better. She drops off to sleep quietly enough, at any rate. He can hear Dudley snoring from all the way down the hall, Vernon and Petunia’s muted voices coming through the walls. It’s too strange to consider, all of it, so instead he counts the cracks in the ceiling and rebuilds her brick by brick from memory.

He still doesn’t regret kissing her that day after the Quidditch match, no matter how difficult everything is now. He had pulled her outside afterwards, his head buzzing. She flew behind him like a scarlet kite. That second time he kissed her might as well have been the first, he’d been so nervous. She’d laughed. Smiled. Grabbed his collar and pulled him against her, still smiling. He can feel it now, the curve of her lips against his, the sweet rush of her breath. It sends an ache through him, coiling in his gut. God. Life sucks sometimes.

He rolls over, restless. Ron is sprawled gracelessly on his stomach, his hand stretched out, just touching the ends of Hermione’s hair. Harry tries not to dwell on how unfair it is that they can have each other, keep each other. If only they ever get around to admitting they want to, that is. The annoyingly logical voice in his head reminds him that it was his idea to give Ginny up. That he _could_ have kept her if he wasn’t so scared. He firmly tells that voice to shut up. Maybe he’s being indulgent, but right now, lying on a lumpy mattress in the house of relatives who hate him while the one person he wants is far away, he doesn’t care. There’s a strange comfort in nobility at times like this.

Funny how that nobility doesn’t extend to Ron and Hermione. That’s his weakness. He simply cannot imagine doing this without them. He’s beginning to have trouble imagining doing _anything_ without them. He tries to imagine the future, but draws a blank. Surely they won’t still be together, 5, 10, 50 years from now. Not like this. But the idea that they _won’t_ be is so alien he can’t wrap his brain around it, so he stops trying and allows himself to drop into sleep.

 

 **  
_hermione : start_   
**

They are all staying at the Burrow for the days leading up to the wedding, even Percy, who arrives unexpectedly and submits stiffly to his mother’s fussing. Harry and Ron are crammed into the room below the attic with the twins while Hermione shares Ginny’s room, as she has so often in the past. They find themselves acting like 14-year-olds; whispering to each other in the darkness, giggling, walking arm in arm down to breakfast. Anything that will let them cling to childhood for just one second longer.

The days have been long. Mrs. Weasley has no problem with delegation so they’ve all found themselves de-gnoming the garden, stacking chairs, lugging sacks of food. Their feet and backs are sore when they collapse onto the couch or retreat gratefully to their beds. Sleep still doesn’t come easy, though, not for Hermione; not when the world seems like it’s being held back only by this wedding. She is torn between being grateful for the respite and being impatient, her fingers itching to rip the bandage off and get it over with.

The night before the wedding is muggy and close. Ginny fidgets, sliding her bare legs to find patches of cool sheet before giving up and huffily kicking the covers to the floor. Her restlessness is catching. Hermione flips on the thin mattress, violently fluffing her pillow in frustration. When Ginny’s breathing finally slows, she throws the sheet back and creeps downstairs to the kitchen.

Arthur is there, nursing a Soothing Potion and staring into the banked embers of the fire with unfocused eyes. He is pleased to see her, the comfort of company overriding his parental urge to send her to bed. She has always liked Arthur. It is a comfort that his affection for her cannot be as easily swayed as Molly’s. Not that Molly doesn’t care for her, she knows, but she hasn’t forgotten fourth year and her pitifully tiny Easter Egg. She knows where Molly’s loyalties lie.

They don’t speak beyond pleasantries. Too many things could be said, _should_ be said, so they settle on companionable silence, knowing all too well that such moments will soon be few and far between, if they exist at all.

The hushed silence leads to introspection, to the stark thoughts that she returns to time and again, worrying at them like a dog with a bone. They were her ideas. Malfoy used _her_ ideas and Dumbledore is dead because of them. She has never before considered that loyalty to rule and order could come with such a cost. She is only a girl still, but there are some things she knows: the cost will never be so high again; these two boys are her family; and she does not wish to die.

Mr. Weasley wearily pushes himself to his feet. He does not say goodnight, merely clasps her shoulder as he shuffles past. The kitchen seems larger when he leaves, the corners darker, the shadows somehow menacing. The thought of going back to her narrow bed alone suddenly seems unbearable. She does not allow herself to think or question as she climbs the stairs on silent feet, past Ginny’s room, all the way to the top floor. If she stops for too long her brain will start working so she pushes on the door, sending a widening wedge of dim light across the floor.

Fred and George are on mattresses on the floor. They sleep like born troublemakers, limbs flung carelessly with no regard to the boundaries of mattress or sheet or personal space. In the other bed, Harry is backed against the wall, his dark hair a slash against the whiteness of his face. His hand is curled beneath his cheek, mashing it up into the glasses he has somehow forgotten to remove. His face will be creased and marked tomorrow morning. Gingerly she steps around the twins’ sprawled forms to the foot of Ron’s bed. He sleeps wide open, one arm above his head, one foot hanging off the edge of the mattress and suddenly she wants to cry.

There is room between his sleeping form and the wall, so she claims it, crawling carefully alongside to settle on her side facing him. He does not wake; Ron requires an act of nature to rouse him from sleep, though an angry mother will do in a pinch. Still, his body knows she’s there even if his brain does not. He curls towards her, his hands finding her and pulling her against him. The steady beat of his heart thrums beneath her cheek. For the first time in what seems like forever, she relaxes. She will be gone before any of them stirs in the morning, but for now she breathes him in and allows her mind to stop, just for a moment. If she cannot have peace just yet, at least she can have this.

 

 **  
_ron : finish_   
**

Ron wakes with a groan. Being a teenage boy can be a trial, he’d be the first to admit that. He wakes up hard and ready most mornings as it is. He doesn’t need a particularly vivid dream about Hermione to help him along. Harry laughs, calls him a pervert. Warns him that if he doesn’t get a hold of himself and get down to breakfast, he’ll have Molly up here to contend with, tugging at the sheets and calling him a lazybones. The very thought is enough to douse any lingering effects and send him grumbling to the bathroom.

She’s come to him in his dreams before, but never like that. He’s never really touched her, never slid his hands beneath her clothes to the places he can’t even imagine, but this morning he somehow knows how soft the skin inside her elbow is, how the palms of her hands are cool even when the rest of her isn’t. He shakes his head at himself, annoyed, as he wrenches his denims over damp legs. He’s so bloody horny his dreams are ramping up into an unprecedented level of realism. Even his pillow seems to carry her dream-scent, warm and candy-sweet. _Get a grip, Weasley_ , he chastises himself. _It was just a dream._

Still, he can’t quite meet her eyes at breakfast. He isn’t sure he’ll be able to look at her normally, so he doesn’t look at all, focusing instead on her hand, her shoulder, the nimbus of her hair. He doesn’t notice that she’s not looking at him either; he’s a bit busy thinking of Quidditch and bubotuber pus and Aragog in an effort to distract his crotch from its increasing interest in any part of her that’s available. He’s never been so grateful for a tabletop in his life. Thankfully his mother’s too wrapped up in last minute wedding preparations to wonder why her youngest son stays so long at the table, long after the others have vanished and he has no possible way of worming out of dish duty.

The wedding is a blur, really. Relatives he’s sure he’s never seen before accost him to pinch his cheeks and accuse him of being only “this high” the last time they saw him. He’s on the verge of considering a career as a hermit when he finally gets away, joining Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins to sit in the chairs scattered at the edge of the lawn, butterbeer firmly in hand. Ginny immediately goes for his cheeks, one knee across his lap as she fashions her hands into claws and calls him “Ickle Ronniekins.” They all laugh as he attempts to fight her off, but Ginny is strong and drunk and his heart isn’t in it. She’s his baby sister, still, no matter how she protests. He pretends to be put out, to squirm when she mashes her cheek to his and babytalks him in a mimicry of the booming, stentorian voice of their Great-Aunt Getrudis, but his arms are around her, squeezing until she breaks off and her voice returns to normal as she complains that she can’t breathe. Hermione catches his eye for the first time all day and her eyes are so soft and clear that he becomes uncomfortable, glad for the earlier pinching that hides his blush now. He pushes Ginny off his lap in Harry’s direction.

“Here, get her out of my hair. Go dance with your girlfriend.” He immediately wishes he’d chosen another word, any other word, but Ginny is drunk enough not to notice or care, so she wrestles Harry to his feet and onto the dance floor. Harry looks positively alarmed. Dancing’s still not quite his thing but he gamely takes her hand as she twirls around him like he’s a maypole.

Fred and George stand. That’s our cue, they say. As they pass him, Fred swoops in for a thorough hair-mussing. Ron scowls, trying to snag his wrists, but Fred evades capture and strolls chuckling to the punch bowl, a suspicious bottle-shaped lump beneath his robes. George just claps him on the back. “You might want to take your own advice about that dancing, Ronniekins.” Now it is Hermione’s turn to blush. She is wearing yellow, her dress like melted butter in the fading sunlight. He has to fight the urge to pick a fight, to make things normal. To stop this feeling that he’s about to slide off the edge of the world. Instead he thinks back to the Yule Ball and decides to do now what he should have done then.

She is surprised when he holds out his hand to her. Shocked when he bows and brings her knuckles to his lips. He grins sheepishly at her from beneath fringe grown shaggy, as they both laugh at how strange it all is. They’ve known each other forever, after all. A simple dance shouldn’t be so foreign. Couples orbit the dance floor and she moves to join them, but he holds her here. He’d rather dance with her right here, beneath the branches of the trees he climbed as a boy, spangled now with fairies in glass globes twinkling in the dusk. He knows he’s acting soppy, but he places the blame squarely on the wedding.

They don’t dance so much as sway. He has to concentrate to make sure he’s not stepping on her feet. His face must show it, because she’s giggling now, hiding her face against his neck. It shouldn’t be a surprise that her head fits perfectly beneath his chin, really. There’s no pretense of formality; she is folded against him, her arm looped beneath his. He can’t resist rubbing his cheek against her temple, touching his nose to her hair and breathing in the sugared smell of it, somehow so familiar.

Then it clicks into place: the smell of her hair on his pillow, the feel of her skin against his, the touch of her hands that reached him even in the deepest of sleep. Everything clicks and all of the blood in his body drains into his crotch and maybe his brains do too because suddenly he’s kissing her, right there in full view of his mum and his dad and god and all. Surely he’s spent moments in his life _not_ kissing her, but he can’t seem to remember a single one. If you told him right this second that he’d ever been unable to admit he loved her, he’d laugh in your face, call you a stupid git. But that’s what happens; time rewrites itself over and over and right now it’s at the beginning.

This is their last night in the Burrow. Fred and George have gone, apparated back to their own flat. By the time they all stumble to bed, saturated with butterbeer and pilfered firewhiskey, it’s past midnight. Hermione’s disappeared; he hasn’t seen her since Bill and Fleur said their goodbyes.

So now he’s waiting for her. Harry sleeps peacefully, deeply, thanks to the liquor he drank to keep himself from searching Ginny out after the reception. Ron lies back in his bed, arms thrown above his head. It would be unthinkable for her to stay away. So it is no small measure of relief he feels when the door swings open on silent hinges and she stands with her back against the jamb, blinking as her eyes adjust to the darkness. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. She is looking straight at him; she knows he was waiting. His heart is pounding so hard that he can feel it through his skin, so hard that he wonders if she can hear it from where he stands.

Nerves and bravado are written on her face as she pushes away from the door and moves to his bedside. She is trembling. His eyes never leave hers, though his fingertips test the hem of her shorts, his knuckles brushing her thigh. She can still go back. She might. He prays that she won’t. When she makes up her mind she does it swiftly, crawling over his body to lie between him and the wall. This time it is she who kisses him, stretching to reach his mouth with her hand on his ribs for balance.

He is dimly aware that Harry is in the room, that he could wake, no matter how drunk. But then Hermione is pulling herself over him, straddling him, and he thinks maybe his whole bloody family could be in the room and he wouldn’t care. Her hips move and her mouth drops open, soundless, her eyes half-closed. It’s really more than a 17-year-old boy can be asked to bear. He is desperately afraid he’ll embarrass himself as he grabs her hips to still her, gulping for air. She regards him with dark eyes and smiles as if he just told her a secret before leaning forward and kissing him, her clever tongue delicately touching his. All thoughts of control are discarded in favor of kissing her back, of pulling her down with him.

She is underneath him now, their clothing pushed aside or discarded altogether. How she got there, he doesn’t know. He can see her brain working, processing everything. It makes him smile. She can be predictable, though she wouldn’t thank him for saying so. The smile slides off his face when he feels her small hand steal between them to measure him, to work out the logistics of it all in that busy head of hers. Surprised triumph shows on her face as he surges against her hand and applies his open mouth to her neck.

Then the triumph is his as he slides into her and her eyes lose focus. He just about loses everything himself, convinced he’s about two seconds away from sticky humiliation. More than that, he’s terrified she won’t feel anything, that he’ll rush headlong into oblivion and selfishly leave her behind. But that’s one good thing about having Bill for a brother. He’s willing to share tips.

Ron slides his hand down her stomach, over the soft curve of her abdomen and into the curls below, fumbling until he hits the spot that has her sucking in her breath and twisting beneath him. Now she’s the one shuddering and making tiny noises in the back of her throat that go straight to his gut. He can see when she comes, how her eyes widen and expand into blackness. She arches against him, snapping the last thread of his tenuous control, and it is like he is being turned inside out.

She does not go back to the room she shares with Ginny that night. He keeps a firm grip on her, mutinously tangling his limbs with hers, but it proves unnecessary, as she makes no move to leave. He tries to stay awake. Sleeping seems like a waste when she’s right there next to him, soft and naked and wrapped around him like a vine. But she drifts off to sleep and he soon follows.

It is her absence that wakes him. Startled, he sits up in his bed, afraid she’s stolen back to her room after all. It is then that he becomes aware of Harry thrashing, of his panicking mutterings. She is kneeling at his bedside, shaking him awake. He bolts upright, staring wildly before realization dawns and he slumps like a puppet with its strings cut. Her glance flickers to Ron and then she is standing, flipping the covers back.

“Shove over, Harry.” For all that it is hushed, it still carries the ring of authority. Only Hermione can whisper bossily. Harry does not pretend to misunderstand or protest. He merely scoots over and blinks owlishly. As usual Ron is the last to catch on. Hermione has her knee on Harry’s bed and just as his brain is about to inform him that the girl he was just shagging is climbing into another boy’s bed, she says “Ronald,” her voice curt, and suddenly he realizes. It takes a moment to disentangle himself from the sheets, though he does manage enough clarity of mind to ensure that his pajama bottoms are in proper order before he stands.

He is sure the bed will be too small for the three of them. But they shift until they fit together: her head beneath his chin, Harry’s cheek against her shoulder blade, his shoulder nudging Ron’s outstretched arm, their feet tangled together like yarn in a basket.

“All right, Harry?” Even at a murmur, his voice seems too disruptive, too loud.

“Yeah.” Harry sounds surprised. He hadn’t realized he meant it. Louder then. “Yeah, I reckon I am.” Tomorrow is soon enough to worry.

 

 **  
_ginny : end_   
**

She wakes to a marching band cheerfully stomping around in her brain. She would blame Fred and George for spiking the punchbowl if she hadn’t already been drunk by that point. Bugger it, she’ll blame them anyway. The mirror tut-tuts disapprovingly at her as she brushes her teeth, telling her that such a pretty girl should take better care of her face. At least for once she has a built-in excuse for her puffy eyes. And if anyone comes near her with a trace of sympathy, she can claim hangover-induced nausea and flee, she decides.

She doesn’t remember if she embarrassed herself last night. She remembers Charlie handing her the first butterbeer and telling her to buck up. George handing her the third, off-handedly mentioning how he’d told Algernon, their third cousin, twice-removed (from the Weasley family, at least, the depth of his removal from human genetics remaining unclear), that she’d had a crush on him for years, which might explain why he’d been sniffing after her all day. Whichever brother gave her the sixth butterbeer, liberally laced with firewhiskey…well, that one she plans on killing as soon as she identifies him.

Her toes are sore as she sits on the edge of her bed and fumbles with her clothes. Harry hasn’t gotten any better at dancing, it seems. Probably a good thing she was drunk at the time, since she doesn’t remember being trod upon; only blissfully flinging her arms around his neck and staring hard at his face to memorize it. Dancing around him. Dipping him, though she still isn’t sure how she talked him in to that one. Maybe because she’d grabbed his arse just beforehand. She doesn’t remember kissing him and can’t decide if that is a relief or a regret.

One thing is certain; she won’t ask him to change his mind today, not if it kills her. It’s too late for that, anyway. She already let him leave. Now it’s just the formalities that they all have to go through. The worst bit of it is that she understands. Still. If there’s one thing she’s had enough of to last her a lifetime, it’s people taking it upon themselves to decide what’s best for her. The part of her that wants to kick and scream, to fight and dig her heels in, has moved to the forefront of late. Every time she sees him she has to talk herself out of begging, yelling, of throwing herself at him or hexing his eyebrows off.

For once, Hermione is out of advice. They’ve whispered back and forth, cocooned in Ginny’s bedroom at night, but there’s nothing she can offer now. She can only shake her head, smile sadly, say _I know, I don’t know, I wish_. Ginny has not allowed herself to start missing Hermione yet.

When it comes time for them to leave, they all gather in the front yard. Hermione’s hand is in hers and she squeezes too hard. Molly is sobbing openly, adjusting their collars and reminding them to keep everyone updated, as Arthur pats her shoulder. Hugs are exchanged, advice is given. It’s almost like being on Platform 9 ¾, just heavier. More final. She laughs, but it’s hollow. When she tells her mother that they aren’t going away forever it feels forced and untrue.

Saying goodbye to Harry isn’t quite so hard this time. After all, she’s done it before. She’s tempted to shake hands with him, wish him a brisk farewell to teach him some sort of lesson, but she’s never been one to cut off her nose to spite her face. Maybe she holds on to him a little too long, a bit too tight, but she does not ask. She couldn’t. She’d rather say goodbye.

She is not, however, prepared to say goodbye to Ron. He folds her into his long arms, no longer the gangly boy’s arms they once were, and she wants to cry. He softly calls her “Gin,” and she _does_ cry, pressing her face to his chest like a child. His arms are so tight around her they hurt.

“I’ll bring him back for you, Gin,” he promises. “I’ll bring him home.” Hot tears hit her skin, whether his or hers she doesn’t know.

“Don’t forget to bring yourself back with him, you idiot.” He laughs, even as his arms tighten even more, just for a moment, and then they are gone and she is left alone to wait. Her days are too full of goodbyes, of late.


End file.
